UCLA in uphill battle with Stanford, Luck

Sept. 30, 2011

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck evades UCLA's Nate Chandler while looking for an open receiver during the 2010 game at the Rose Bowl. Luck rushed for 63 yards on seven carries in a 35-0 victory. THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck evades UCLA's Nate Chandler while looking for an open receiver during the 2010 game at the Rose Bowl. Luck rushed for 63 yards on seven carries in a 35-0 victory.THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

"If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss."

The words are from Sun Tzu's ancient Chinese military opus, "The Art of War." UCLA's enemy this week is the Stanford Cardinal, which is led by quarterback Andrew Luck, a Heisman favorite who is projected to go first overall in next year's NFL draft.

"He's got everything," Coach Rick Neuheisel said of Luck. "If you go to the Hall of Fame and look at all the quarterbacks and say he's got this attribute and he had this attribute, you can say Andrew Luck has almost all of those attributes."

Heading into their third battle with Luck, the Bruins feel like they finally know him. It's just one reason why they believe they can beat the No. 6 Cardinal on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Palo Alto.

"We can't let the run beat us, we can't get beat by a broken coverage," linebacker Sean Westgate said. "We're going to have to make him beat us with his throws. The perfect throw beats the perfect coverage. I feel like if we can make it into that kind of game, where he has to be perfect to beat us, we'll be able to play our game.

"We have the athletes to compete with Stanford."

Well, UCLA hopes it does. Six defensive backs have been battling injuries this week, including cornerback Sheldon Price and safety Dalton Hilliard, who are doubtful to play after sitting out practice all week.

The timing couldn't be worse for the Bruins. Senior safety Tony Dye, who sat out last week with stingers in his left shoulder but is expected to start, called Luck the best quarterback he's ever faced, better than former Trojan Mark Sanchez, who is now with the New York Jets. Dye said the 6-4, 237-pound redshirt junior is the rare college quarterback that can make every throw, from the deep out to the deep fade — and he can do it on a line.

"I've never seen anybody throw the ball so incredibly," Dye said.

Luck's combination of arm strength and precision has Dye cautioning his teammates to not look for the ball until they are literally flanking their receiver. Luck is also a master at reading coverages, requiring defenders to be especially disciplined.

"He's so intelligent. He knows what he's getting from a defense, pre-snap, so he knows where he's going right away," Dye said. "You got to stay on because he's so good at looking people off and coming back to routes. You have to be clamped, no matter what the situation."

The Bruins did that as well as anyone last year, holding Luck to season lows in completion percentage (45.8) and passing yards (151). But they were ill-prepared for Luck's scrambling — he had run just three times for three yards against them in 2009 — as he torched them for 63 yards on seven carries, four of which went for first downs. Stanford won easily, 35-0.

"They were running so much stuff last year, the game plan was to keep things simple so we didn't have to think so much," Dye said. "They're always trying to get people confused. We were able to just play the routes in front of us. It made it really easy for us as defensive backs. He killed us with his legs though."

But his arm remains their primary concern. Luck has a 64.6 completion percentage for his career, including 70.7 percent last year. He's thrown just 13 interceptions despite more than 700 attempts.

Defensive coordinator Joe Tresey said Luck's accuracy demands the secondary to keep everything in front. Another key will be whether the defense as a whole plays faster after thinking too much in its first month in his system. Tresey is hoping the Bruins, coming off their best performance of the season, are ready to employ a few surprises for whom he calls "the best quarterback in the country."

"We have to be able to disguise, hold our disguise for as long as we can, make him figure it out when the ball is snapped," Tresey said.

UCLA has one other line of defense — its offense. Coordinator Mike Johnson vowed he won't be as conservative as he was against Oregon State, when the Bruins passed just four times in the second half and 12 times overall. Stanford is averaging 46 points a game, UCLA 27.

"They got a great offense and they're going to put points up. Everyone knows that," quarterback Richard Brehaut said. "We have to keep up the pace and keep putting scoring drives together or the game's going to get out of hand. You know you have to play mistake-free football because he's ready to take advantage of any mistakes you make.

"I know he's going to have a great NFL career because mentally he's there and physically he's got all the gifts."

If the Bruins know Luck as well as they think they do, they might come out of this weekend feeling like they won a hundred battles. Or fought in that many.

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